Monday, February 11, 2013

About halfway through watching Wreck-It Ralph in the theater a few months ago, I became slightly obsessed with the character of Vanellope Von Schweetz. She is adorable and sassy and I thought it would be a great costume to make, and one I wouldn't be self-conscious in. So the rest of the movie I was about three-quarters watching, and about a quarter brainstorming how to do this.

First, I looked everywhere for a teal sweatshirt and teal leggings, to no avail. I also couldn't find an appropriate brown double-ruffled skirt. So I purchased this stuff instead.

Ignore the small gray cat with lazer eyes, please.

That's a white men's sweatshirt, a brown maxi-skirt, and white leggings, all purchased online from Target. I got some teal Rit dye and colored the sweatshirt and tights. If I were to do it over, I would have added just a little bit of kelly green dye to get a more accurate color, but it worked well enough. I purchased two sets of hot pink shoelaces to replace the hood tie and to create the stitching on the pocket. I cut the skirt to the length I wanted, and then used the fabric left over to create the two ruffles with. To make the stripes on the leggings, I hand-sewed white and purple ribbon on them. This was by far the hardest part of the costume, and the part I'm least happy with how it turned out.

Not an internal organ.

Next, I made some hair do-hickeys. To create the licorice hair tie, I sewed pipe-cleaners diagonally into a rectangle of red cotton fabric. I think it looks a bit like a weird internal organ or something, but it works in context well enough.

The "gummi bears" were especially fun to make.

Then I made a bunch of polymer clay "candy" for her hair. I don't think I am 100% movie accurate here, but I did my best without absolutely losing my mind. (Okay, I know I lost my mind ages ago, hush.) These all got glued to either snaps or bobby pins to actually attach to my hair.

Trying as hard as possible to look animated.

And here is everything all put together. I think I will actually add a wig to this to make it a little more authentic, but otherwise, this is the end product!